Colourful pasta puttanesca

I have to confess I cheated and used a packet of Puttanesca sauce but here is a link to a recipe I have not tried just to give you the idea
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/maindishentreerecipes/r/Pastaputtanesca.htm


I had picked up some wonderful purple carrots from the supermarket and had some broccoli that needed using


2-3 handfuls of wholegrain penne pasta - boiled according to directions
1 head of broccoli chopped and steamed
1 purple carrot julienned and steamed with the broccoli
(I steamed these over the pasta and the pasta water started to turn purple)
several cherry tomatoes
nutritional yeast
salt & pepper to taste


Heat the puttanesca sauce and stir through the cooked pasta, top with the steamed veges, scatter through some cherry tomatoes and season with nutritional yeast, salt & pepper.


Really quick meal, wonderful punchy flavour, fabulous colours!

Corn Chowder

I so love soup in the winter! Inspired by some recipes using pureed cauliflower to make things creamy I decided to create a simple plant-strong low fat Corn Chowder - served it to my non-vege son and he loved it


1 onion (peeled and diced)
1-2 tsp of curry powder (to taste)
2-3 large potatoes (peeled and chopped)
1-2 cups of frozen sweet corn
1-2 cups vegetable stock


1/2 cauliflower (steamed until tender)
1/4 to 1/2 cup plant milk of choice (I used soymilk)
Nutritional Yeast
Salt & pepper to taste




Sauté onion in a small amount of water, add curry powder and stir for 30 seconds,  add potatoes, corn and stock, bring to boil and simmer for approximately 30 minutes.


Put steamed cauliflower into the blender and puree. Add just enough plant milk to get it to the consistency of very thick cream.


Add to the soup, then season with nutritional yeast, salt & pepper.


How could something that tasted this good and creamy be sooo healthy?????

Vegan Bubble & Squeak

Inspired by the presence of leftover garlic mashed potatoes & some cabbage that needed using  I did the following

 

½ onion chopped

1 clove garlic minced

¼ cabbage chopped

½ block tofu (chopped & marinated in tamari sauce, garlic powder & 1 tsp of nutritional yeast)

¼ -1/2 red pepper chopped

Additional Generous tablespoon of nutritional yeast – more to taste if you wish

Leftover Garlic mashed potato (Boil potatoes in water with peeled garlic, mash and add plant milk to get the right consistency & salt/pepper to taste)

 

Saute onion in small amount of water, add garlic and chopped cabbage and red pepper with small amounts of water to stop it sticking.

When cooked but still crisp add marinated tofu, finally stir through the cold mashed potato and cook until warmed through and add additional nutritional yeast.

Can be served with chutney or tomato sauce if desired but quite yummy on its own.

I think this is what I did… (created it as I went and remembering several days later)

Simple 3-2-1 dressing

This is from "Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease" by Caldwell Esselstyn


my go-to quick & easy dressing  - no need to consult a recipe book here.




3 Tbs vinegar of your choice - interesting flavoured vinegars can vary the flavour of this
2 Tbs mustard of your choice (usually use Dijon)
1 Tbs maple syrup


whisk together

Cauli-power Fettuccine “Alfredo”

I made this sauce and poured over reheated quinoa topped with sauteed kale, mushroom & tomato one night, another time I used some wholegrain penne pasta and made it a “mac n cheese”. Also mixed with a bit of relish to make a great cheesy dip.

I have generally made half this quantity and found it generous. Have sometimes tweaked the amount of lemon juice & nutritional yeast depending on what I wanted from the taste, also added more milk than it says as I find it too thick.

This is a velvety really “cheesy” flavoured sauce, who would have though something that tastes sooo good could be sooo healthy!

By the time you have blended it the temp has dropped so reheat before adding to your pasta.

 

I adapted it from Oh She Glows – dropped the oil in her recipe and it worked fine.

 

Ingredients:

• 4 heaping cups cauliflower florets (1 small/medium cauliflower)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (from 2 med/lg cloves)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened and unflavoured almond milk (or non-dairy milk of choice)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or to taste
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon pepper, to taste
• pasta of choice
• Fresh parsley, for garnish
  Directions:

1.       Add cauliflower florets in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a low boil. Once boiling, cook for another 3-7 minutes until fork tender. Drain.

2.       Meanwhile, saute the minced garlic over low heat for 4-5 minutes until softened and fragrant, but not browned. (Use a small amount of water so it doesn’t stick)

3.       In a high speed blender, add the cooked and drained cauliflower, sauteed garlic, milk, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Blend until a super smooth sauce forms. The key here is to get a really smooth sauce so don't be afraid to let it run for a minute or so. Set aside.

4.       Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add your desired amount of pasta and boil for the time instructed on the package. Drain pasta.

5.       Add cauliflower sauce into the pot (you can use the same pot!) and add the drained pasta. Heat over low-medium until heated enough to your liking. Salt again to taste (the pasta dilutes the flavour).

6.       Serve with fresh minced parsley and black pepper. Feel free to add in your favourite sauteed or roasted vegetables. I think peas, spinach, or broccoli would work very nicely! I added mushrooms, but I wasn't overly crazy about them in this dish.

http://ohsheglows.com/2014/01/20/cauli-power-fettuccine-alfredo-vegan/#ixzz2wBs1vXUb

Revive cookbook

A shout out for the revive cookbook. I received vol 3 as a birthday present. My omnivorous sons were staying and I was trying to cook stuff that was good for me and still appealed to them. A couple of the revive recipes went down a treat.


Quinoa and Cashew mingle was a hit as was the Penne Alfredo with pureed tofu in the sauce - actually the sauce was sooo good I wanted to drink it with a straw while I was cooking it!


Revive cookbooks have become a hit in the wider family - other members own the 1st 2 books. Revive is a café in Auckland - lunch there is wonderful - I can testify to that!


My only caution would be to those trying to follow the same diet as I am - watch the oil - where it says sauté in oil - I just use stock or water and it comes out fine. Coconut cream in some of the sauces - my suggestion would be to use lite coconut cream and just don't dine on that too often.


It's wonderful to find a really great New Zealand vege cookbook - if you haven't got one - go out and buy one now!

What I ate in the holidays

It's a bit like those talks we used to give at school.
Since last posting we've had Christmas, New Year, a birthday for me, visiting family. Honestly I have been really pleased with how it is gone, gained no weight over Christmas and managed to lose a little since. I think the clarity about my food choices has been the most helpful thing.


We all have things we compromise on and I compromised on the oil - not that I went all out for greasy foods. There was some oil in the dressings and coconut oil in the cheesecake base, cheesecake also had some sugar in the filling.


For our family Christmas dinner I brought along 3 salads - the Indonesian Rice Salad (already posted here) and 2 from Get Waisted by Dr Mary Clifton - the spinach & strawberry salad (which looked as fabulous as I thought it would and was yummy, & the Aztec black bean salad - beans to punch up the protein, lots of colour and crunch and flavour. All 3 salads were a hit with the rest of the family.


We are keen on our garlic bread here in NZ, I provided some garlic bruschetta - simple roasted garlic spread on slices of French bread and slices of wholemeal rolls - this disappeared in short order and was also declared a hit. (roasted the garlic the day before so not too time consuming either).


For dessert I made a raw cashew cheese cheesecake (my eldest son is a huge cheesecake fan). I used one recipe for the base, one for the filling and made up my own topping. (pomegranate seeds & blackberries dredged with pomegranate molasses - yum). The cheesecake was also a resounding hit with the rest of the family. As there were 12 of us it was just a small slice each, topped up with fresh fruit salad it made for a wonderful dessert.


There was other food on the table but being committed to no animal products meant that I just wasn't tempted. (actually 1 small compromise here - it was my sisters 60th birthday so had a very small slice of her cake). It was all wholefoods anyway so the wholefood part wasn't even an issue. After dinner I didn't feel bloated and over full as has happened in previous years.


The food I ate was delicious, looked beautiful and left me feeling great not guilty - I LOVE eating this way.